Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Computational Thinking: Enactment in Elementary Classrooms

Abstract

Technology has increasingly permeated many aspects of everyday life and this evolution raises the need for individuals to understand how the digital world works and what opportunities and risks it brings (Nouri, Zhang, Mannila & Norén, 2019). For this to be an experience for everyone, we need to rethink how we integrate computational thinking (CT) and provide teachers with tools to center their students’ identities, experiences, and cultures in the classroom. In this paper, we present two case studies of primary (elementary) teachers from a full primary (student ages 5–13) semi-rural school in the North Island of New Zealand that showcase examples of their current CT integrated culturally responsive lessons and activities. Our findings show how elementary teachers implement culturally responsive approaches in CT lessons. Although a positive example of how CT can be integrated in a culturally responsive manner, we discuss our findings and their implications.